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HomeProgrammingNon-Robot Programming2026-2027 TrainingModule 1: Team Tools & DartLesson 3

Lesson 3

Recap

Our agenda is to go through the 3 main things we work on briefly and then go deeper into each one.

Good news: we finished our first one!

  • Team websites 🌐
  • Team servers ⚙️
  • Scouting and strategy apps 📱

2. Team Servers

Unfortunately, this section does not contain much, if any, coding, and it may seem boring.

This section is also one of the hardest parts covered in non-robot programming.

However, if you want to be an elite programmer, this is VERY important 💪.

What is a Server?

A server is a computer that receives a request from a personal computer and sends information back to the personal computer.

Example

An easy example to think of is this:

Imagine you search “Today’s weather” on your phone.

Your phone sends a request to a server.

The server receives the request and processes it.

The server decides which data to send and returns it back to your phone.

Your phone receives the data and displays today’s weather.

In simple terms:

Your device → Request → Server → Information → Your device

What is Docker?

Docker is software that runs and manages containers, which we will talk about in a second.

If all of this did not make much sense, it’s okay!

Watch this video to understand more about servers and Docker:

Video link

https://youtu.be/aDfF_7PsEo4?si=xmTMm8RyA0wV96fm 

Try It Yourself!

Now that you’ve watched the video, let’s run a real container on one of our real servers.

Before You Begin

  1. Go to portainer.feds201.com .
  2. You need a login. Ask a programming lead or mentor, or look in the Business Drive for the student version of the team account passwords sheet.
  3. Once you are logged in, select the second_server environment. Only work on second_server.

Do not touch anything else in Portainer. The containers you see there keep our team’s websites and tools running. Only create, stop, and remove the container that you create in this activity. If you are unsure about something, stop and ask a programming lead or mentor.

Step 1: Explore Docker Hub

Docker Hub  is a giant public library of images. It is like an app store for containers. Companies and developers upload images there, and anyone can download (“pull”) them.

Spend a few minutes browsing:

  • Search for an app you have heard of, like nginx, python, or minecraft.
  • Look for the Docker Official Image and Verified Publisher badges. These mean the image comes from a trusted source.
  • Open a few and read the overview page. Most explain what the image does and how to run it.

Step 2: Create Your Container

  1. In Portainer, click Containers in the left menu, then Add container.
  2. Name: type yourname-welcome (for example, david-welcome). Using your own name keeps your container from getting mixed up with someone else’s.
  3. Image: type docker/welcome-to-docker. This is a tiny official image from Docker made for beginners.
  4. Scroll down to Network ports configuration and turn on Publish all exposed network ports to random host ports.
    • The app listens on port 80 inside the container. This setting tells Docker to pick a free port on the server and connect it to the container for you. That way you never collide with someone else’s container.
  5. Click Deploy the container.

Step 3: See It Running

  1. Go back to the Containers list and find your container. Its status should be running.
  2. Look at the Published Ports column. You will see a link with a long random port number. Click it.
  3. A new tab should open with a “Welcome to Docker” page. That page is being served by your container, on our server. Click your container’s name and check out Logs and Stats to see what your container is doing.

Step 4: Clean Up (Required!)

Do not leave your container running. Every running container uses the server’s resources.

  1. Go back to the Containers list.
  2. Check the box next to your container only.
  3. Click Kill (or Stop). The status will change to exited.
    • Kill only stops it. The container still exists, so you are not done yet.
  4. Make sure your container is still the only one checked, then click Remove.
  5. Portainer will show a confirmation box. It may include an option to remove non-persistent data (usually worded as “Automatically remove non-persistent volumes”). Do NOT select this option. Leave it unchecked.
  6. Confirm the removal.
  7. Check that your container is gone from the list. If it is still there, ask a programming lead or mentor.

You can also delete the image from the Images page, but you don’t need to. Please leave it alone.

Learn more about it

Go to Home > Programming > Non-Robot Programming > Servers and Docker and read the content there.

To complete this lesson

Take the Lesson 3 Quiz . You need 9/10 or better; you can retry any time. Nothing to paste in your training doc.

Lesson 2Lesson 4